#Erdwin (DQ)

[loup-roux]

Painting of Erdwin

[mettabees]

I will never finish it,, but is only an au idea

[hekateisconfused]

i'd love to see you draw the original heroes of erdrea (dq11) in your style! (erdwin, serenica, drustan and morcant)

I'm so sorry, I really list inspiration half way through this and felt bad that I can't draw Drustan for absolute shit but I've been sitting on this for so long. I'm so sorry ily take these

[adoggosdoodles]

[shionnes-imeris]

Thou wouldst have me...return there?

[retphienix]

Dragon Quest 11 ending talk for a bit

I literally laid down to go to bed, remembered DQ11, and got so riled up that I had to get up to type this.

Mostly I want to, in frankly boring terms, say what the true ending of DQ11 entails. Spoilers under readmore, that's all this post is.

In non-spoiler terms I wanted to say My god I love DQ11. I loved it a lot, and I'm embarrassed by some of the misunderstandings I tripped through on my playthrough, but I can't feel too badly when some people I respect for how they give deep looks into games also suffered the same Or Perhaps Interpretation Really Is The Final Word And Our Misunderstandings Are True Regardless! But that's not relevant to this post, this post is about what I believe is the intended/true understanding the game tries to give us.

To be blunt, when that word I won't use until the readmore is involved, interpretation can lead to different understandings.

But I wanted to just offer my understanding, which I believe to be the intended understanding based on actual words used in the game, and offer that to anyone who may be a touch confused or just interested in hearing about the ending again without a ton of theories thrown around (it's not that complicated, we just make it that way because **** is involved).

Time Travel. That was the word.

By the end of the true ending there are 3 concurrent timelines going on.

Not one, not two, 3.

In universe this is made clear as early as the beginning of the epilogue (first ending).

Serena and the lot all tell the Hero that he can throw away his life to see a better end.

Some interpreted this as meaning "destroy this time and start again" but nah. I enjoy those interpretations, it adds some hefty weight to things, even GC Positive- my source for DQ retrospective information- interprets it that way and if he still thinks that's the case then more power to him.

But nah, from everything I read in my playthrough and every word said in that scene- unless it's ALL rewritten in the remaster- that's not the case.

First ending your friends tell you that this world will live on without you if you go. The tragic trade you are offering isn't "The world's livelihood" for a better end, it's "YOU'RE time in this world's livelihood" for a better end.

Timeline 1 - You save the world after it's gone to shit, renew hope, reignite strength, inspire the world to become better (Think Serena) and you "Die" in the final fight.

Or at least that's the legend your allies will tell if you decide to give up your life here to save the world all over again.

You shatter the time thing, an action that can only be done by the wielder of that blade, and that's the end of this timeline creating new ones. It goes on without you, better off for having had your help, but you effectively killed yourself in that timeline's eyes so that you could try again in a new one.

Timeline 1 - The world has hope, you "died", the time egg deal is broken which also means the sword is broken.

Timeline 2 - The world is saved before most damage can be done, it's a much happier end- you give Serenica the same chance as you.

Timeline 2's time egg is destroyed by HER, creating a new timeline yet again where the tradeoff is Serenica losing immortality (not a big deal).

This makes Timeline 3 where Serenica and Erdwin save the world EONS before bad things happen, give birth to Erdrick (Loto) and DQ3 begins. Also timeline 3 still has its time egg and sword I'd assume!

Now to some this was all obvious, from all I can recall it's in the actual text of the game, but DQ11 is HEFTY and can be confusing in the moment- I for one kept getting annoyed at timeline 2 having lesser character development than 1 but that was the point, 2 was given a kinder hand thanks to Hero, all the stuff still happened in 1 and exists in 1, this is just the world that 2 is.

To be honest the story isn't complex, it's just plentiful, I was so invested in the minutia of it all that I got confused on the timeline stuff and judging by some theories I've seen (GC's for one) I'm not the only one. I just wanted to say that it's been quite a while since I beat it, I've been able to sit on it, I've been able to absorb it and review things that are said in game and I'm pretty damn sure it's this simple.

Shattering the time deal doesn't seem to ever be compared to destroying the time line, it just creates an opportunity to influence a new copy of it for the Hero, so that means 3 timelines.

That also supports the books at the very end. That'd mean Serenica reads Erdrick books on both previous timelines (previous still feels like the right word for that, the two "broken egg" timelines at the very least) because their timeline's story is still being told, but from the window they have on the previous timelines both stories are finished.

1 and 2 are still going, but 3 can't see them anymore just as they can't see each other or 3.

Also that's just a fun tidbit having her tell the story of the Hero saving the world twice in two scenarios like that.

Anywho, I literally tore myself from sleep to just reiterate what happens at the end of DQ11 and the three timelines associated with that because I??? I don't know? Felt like it? I never explained it during my playthrough, and here's my final take. I assume.

[liquidmetalslime]

Some DQotS / DQS tips:

You can set up your profile and it’s preferences from Village > Wandering travelers > My profile. You can also set up your fav sticker!

In multiplayer, stacking 4 slime foods give you great bonuses. For instance, 4 metals give you +300% exp, and 4 different slime food boosts you luck to +60. For the 4 different combo, do NOT use metal food, it does not grant you the +60 luck.

Remember to get the Thug outfit from the item shop with Bazar points.

Similarly, you can get an outfit similar to Erdwin’s and the Mottle king whistle with daily tickets, which you can get once daily by playing the daily quest (Mission > purple tab > Daily)

The new daily metal hunting missions are easier for low level parties, as the metals in those missions either do nothing or flee; but they do not attack. They are great for getting new vocations to high-enough levels.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSjdu4XMxFo

[marionettestars]

I was really distrustful of the vibe in Cobblestone, but I suppose it was unfounded.

Anyway! Now I, too, am an Erdrick, I suppose.

Nice title drop by Yggdragon! An echo through the ages... Followed by the next Luminary!

I am also very glad that we did, in fact, get to see Serenica and Erdwin again! Two Luminary lovers... And then them in their house...

I really loved DQ11. Maybe even more than DQ9, which, so far, was my only other finished DQ, aside from DQ6 which is somewhat lacking in it's story. Nontheless a good achievement! I love DQ9, so it really does mean a lot. The characters played a large part in it all - I love all of them very much. If I had one complaint it would be the world, although I might just be spoiled by IX, which was a global adventure, unlike XI, which is only continental. Another one would be the final boss theme, although I might just be spoiled by IX again.

If you are reading this and have not yet played the game - I can only recommend it, especially the Switch Version. It's a great RPG with beautiful design and music, as well as fantastic characters and a great story.

Update: I do have another complaint: Calasmos does not remain dead! I really liked how, once you defeated DQ9's final boss, he was actually dead and remained dead. You got to see what you did for the world. Although I can also understand it, seeing how all monsters ceased to exist after Calasmos' disappearance.. But still! It kinda bothers me

[romijuli]

the site i used to make terra is down so INSTEAD you get this sad baby on a DIFFERENT site

This is Goswin, you may know him from Witchy Business as Jade’s poor fuckin sap of a fiance. Honestly I think the proudest I’ve ever been is seeing neenee comment “I can’t believe I even love Goswin.” He initially existed solely for that part, but, unfortunately for both of us, I put him in dqs and now I’m capital-a Attached. So, here we are.

I was ALSO initially supposed to just leave him as a random npc in DQXI but then I had A CONCEPT so, well. It’s fine, he has the coolest role in Magnum Opus out of the whole trio.

Cut for Long and also all-game spoilers, obvi.

Our shy baby Goswin is a product of the Zwaardsrustian diaspora; Characters Found In Places That Aren’t Their Homes is a theme with the Monster Squad (as I’m affectionately calling them). He grew up in Sniflheim and got really into research, most specifically on historical events; solving mysteries of the past, you know. So he set off for Phnom Nohn to investigate the mural.

You can see where this goes.

He first meets the party while they’re searching for Dora, because he also ran into her and went looking for her parents. Sylv (it’s always Sylv with these, huh) suggests they search together, Goswin tries really hard to protest but he’s nervous as fuck, so they all end up in The Other Side.

Goswin has a full-on fuckin panic attack. He’s a researcher, he’s not good at this stuff! And then he instinctively smacks a mannequin dude with his gigantic notebook and goes

Hey. Actually, this is fine. He can live with this.

He sticks with the party through the whole ordeal, highly intrigued by both Veronica’s tiny stature and Eleven. Just straight up Eleven, both because of the Luminary stuff and because he’s very nice and also Goswin is a sad gay baby. This part spawned directly from the WB comments thank you Sam. So even after Dora is dead and the mural is gone and his research is ruined, he chooses to stick with the gang. For research.

And then the tree blows up. And he isn’t found for quite a while. Like, such a long while that everyone goes from “oh he’s probably fine we found everyone else alive so far” to “oh fuck what if he’s dead like veronica” and then they roll into Gallopolis and he’s like oh hey guys I’m researching why Erdwin’s Lantern is falling where’s Veronica?

And then the Lantern breaks and there’s yet another research project destroyed by the gang. It’s like the cabbage guy from ATLA, poor thing. Act 3 does not help; actually, that’s probably worse for act 2!goswin, he and Erik cry on each other.

Serena’s def his best friend in the party, cause she’s really good at handling his nerves. After that, probably Sylv (who just Has That Effect) and Rab (Rab knows, like, all the history).

He fights using literal giant notebooks for melee, because there’s not enough Stupid Weaponry in this game, and for a ranged weapon Erik is teaching him boomerangs! He tries to stay in the back. Emphasis on tries.

[lorerunner]

Dragon Quest Spoilers? According to Yuji Horii (the creator and writer of all mainline DQ games) the Luminary and Serenica are not creating multiple timelines when they smash the orb of time, and the entrity of XI takes place in a single unified timeline. Does this gel with you? I don't see how Serenica going back to be w/ Erdwin doesn't drastically alter the timeline.

Spoilers for DQXI::Honestly no that does not gel with me, unless we presume that entire ending bit with her was literally just in a dream or the afterlife or SOMEthing non literal.

[bahamutgames]

Afterthoughts S: Definitive Edition

Game: DRAGON QUEST XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition (September 27, 2019)

Console: Xbox One (Via Xbox Game Pass)

Hey, it’s me again! It feels like it’s been forever since I last beat a big game with a lot of stuff to talk about. But the last time was actually only a month ago with New Super Lucky’s Tale. In the mean time I’ve been playing a couple of smaller games, tiny indie titles, a few fighting games. But nothing that I couldn’t summarize in a small twitter thread (which you can follow my twitter here if you want to see my art or just support me shilling my other accounts.)

Anyway! Just got done with another major RPG! After Nier Automata, I knew this was a game I really wanted to play before my Game Pass subscription expired. And after toiling away at it for the past month, I’m finally ready to give you all my thoughts on Dragon Quest 11!  As always, this isn’t meant to be review. But just a general throw up of my thoughts and feelings after beating the game, because I love talking so much. As such, this shouldn’t be taken as a serious critique of the game, and shouldn’t be expected to be well written or thought out. Please do check out the game if it interests you at all!

SPOIL WARNING FOR DRAGON QUEST 11 AHEAD! GONNA TALK ABOUT THE WHOLE PACKAGE HERE, AS A FAIR WARNING

Opening

Prior to this, the only Dragon Quest game I had played was DQ 8: Journey of the Cursed King on Nintendo 3DS. I liked it, and thought it was pretty good. But wasn’t perfect and felt a little unnecessarily tedious to get through. But when 11 came out, I saw a ton of people saying it was an amazing RPG. People I followed who weren’t really into RPGs (as far as I knew) were raving about it. So I was really interested to give it a shot myself, but didn’t have the chance until I got game pass.

Stuff I liked

Where to begin? This is a 60 hour game so there’s a lot to talk about. I think first and foremost I just wanna gush about how pretty this game is! The graphics are amazing, I love how the environments are realistic but super brightly colored and saturated, making for ton of gorgeous areas that I couldn’t stop myself from taking pictures of. And Akira Toriyama’s just being placed in these beautiful worlds look so good and amazing. Without a doubt, especially considering its more on the realistic side, this is one of the nicest looking RPGs I’ve played.

Speaking of which, I really loved the character designs. Toriyama does fantastic work that I really like with pretty much everything, but his work on RPGs always tend to be my favorites. The designs for all the main teammates looked super good and all the monsters were really cool looking too. He really knows how to design cool looking dragons, this guy just gets it. On the same not of characters, the characters are fantastic. I really love everyone on the main team (my favorite was probably Serena.) They’re all super fun and I love the way they interact and really seem like a group of good friends. It was great to see how they all interact and work together. A scene that particularly sticks out is when they all forge a new sword of light together, which was fantastic.

I also thought the story and world was cool. Similar to my thoughts on DQ8, the story is pretty simple and easy to follow, but that doesn’t take away from it. It kind of feels like a fairy tale told on a grand scale. I love the idea of the Luminary, and Serenica being reborn into twins is awesome, Erdwin’s Lantern was a cool idea. And of course, Yggdrasil being a huge ass tree flying in the sky is absolutely the best thing ever, that’s so cool. ALSO, I have to give special shoutouts to Mordegon’s Sword of Darkness, coolest thing on the entire planet, I love swords with freaky giant eyes frantically looking around on them.

Lastly, I really liked the gameplay and combat of this game. I thought the way battles are set up as still being traditional turnbased combat but with the ability to freely walk around the field and look at the arenas was awesome. And getting to walk up to teammates to see their thoughts mid battle is super cool. Of course I loved all the different spells you can learn, and all the abilities you get through level ups. A new feature in this one (at least it’s new to me) is the Pep Up state, which is also cool. Particularly because it allows for Crossover Attacks between teammates, which is always the best thing an RPG can include, but most RPGs just choose not to. But DQ11 has it in spades and it ROCKS, there’s so much cool and genuinely useful crossover moves I didn’t even get to see all of them. And a final cool piece of the battle system was the ability to actually change equipment and teammates mid battle. I’m unsure if I’ve ever played a game that allowed for this (though I know they exist) but I thought it really made it feel like you could make use of your whole team and all your equipment. Being able to change teammates and what weapons they use for appropriate strategies was super fun.

Stuff I didn’t like

And, I did really like DQ11. I think I might even like it more than 8. There’s a ton of improvements. I feel like it’s less stingy with EXP, I feel like it was all around just easier to navigate and handle. But I still had a fair amount of issues with the game. Particularly in the- say it with me if you know what’s coming- post Yggdrasil content!! Prior to Yggdrasil, the game was buttery smooth. I flew through the whole thing and loved every second of it with minimal roadblocks (as opposed to DQ8 which roadblocked me at every boss.) And by the time I reached Yggdrasil, I realized I had been playing for 30 hours and didn’t even realize it! That’s awesome and pretty impressive considering I’ve played shorter games that felt like double that.

So, the game starts to crawl a little bit before Yggdrasil in my opinion. Once you have to start looking for the orbs, the game just kinda teeters for a bit there randomly. Like, the orbs are meant to be kind of a big deal, and yet the purple and whichever one you find in the bird dungeon thing (lol) basically get no fanfare. It felt like they were forgotten about and just had to be thrown in at the last second. Now, you could argue that the whole mural thing and the bird boss were those orbs’ fanfare. But it still felt so odd to me. Then, Yggdrasil falls.

I liked the post Yggdrasil stuff, I really did. I thought it was all pretty great from a story and character point of view. And getting to see the world that was so beautiful be corrupted and filled with powerful monsters was neat. I loved Sylvando’s whole parade thing, and every one else’s was cool too. But that’s kinda it. The whole section just drags along as you play with most of your team just gone and it goes so slow. And a lot of it really felt like it could have been condensed down a bit, I mean they don’t even show you what happened to Serena. Which I guess was because of what happened to Veronica but, still?

Again, it’s good story content and I don’t necessarily want any of it removed. But damn man, it really grinds to halt. And I also felt like it got really brutal during this part for no reason, kind of out of nowhere. The skeleton spectral sentinel, Gloomivore, and Booga were MASSIVE hurdles for me to get over randomly. And it got so bad I genuinely considered dropping the game because I just didn’t have the patience. It felt like an NES game again out of nowhere. Now, I do want to blame this on maybe not use the character builder right, or something. But still it was just so annoying out of nowhere. Thankfully I found the perfect strategy of Oomphle on Hendrick, Sap on the enemy, then have Hendrick spam Unbridled Blade, which was foolproof and beat every boss after that.

Thankfully once Serena joins your team again, and everyone is there (minus one aha) the game really picks up steam again. Everything after that was a breeze and went by without any issues. I think I hit one roadblock afterwards and it was pretty easy to just grind past. So I don’t know what happened there. The only other part I have a problem with is I do feel like the game ends rather abruptly. Like, not majorly. But I wouldn’t have minded seeing more about what happens between Eleven and Gemma or something. But that’s what the post game content is for I guess!

Some other nitpicks are that, I didn’t care about the music again. I think I liked more music in this one than DQ8, but still I’d be hard pressed to actually remember any songs from this game. I’m listening to the OST as we speak and other than the battle theme, I feel like I don’t remember what they sound like at all. And that’s probably cause I hate the composer but hey what can you do? I also wish it was easier to find Metal Slimes. I know they’re meant to be rare but I would’ve appreciated some appearing in the overworld just anywhere outside of the dragon chase scene? Weird to me you have randomly encounter them on the side of other enemeis.

Outside of that, uh. I think the Tockles were SUPER tick-tocked onto the game? It seemed like they were going to be massively important, but they just weren’t? I felt like you could’ve removed them and it would have made no change. I also thought there was gonna be WAY more time travel stuff. The scenes where you see the past are some of the best imo. Meeting Chalky from the past, playing as Rab in his kingdom, helping Eleven’s dad pass on. But these don’t feel enough to name the game “Echoes of an Illusive Age” if that makes sense? It just felt like there was supposed to be way more stuff with the Tockles and Time Travel stuff that just didn’t happen. 

Now that I’m remembering it, it felt like there was TONS of stuff built up that just didn’t really go anywhere. Another big one is the whole deal with Erdwin’s lanter? Who was the guy who cut it in half? What was the deal with the lantern? Why did it fall? What was up with the dark Tockle? Wanna give any information on that? No? Okay. But if I had to guess, these all are explored heavily in the post game content, which is cool but sadly I did not have the time to play it. Maybe one day I’ll pick up a copy of the game and play through it fully.

Final Thoughts

Yeah it was good.

I am a huge fan of RPGs, but Dragon Quest just hadn’t fully clicked with me. I played 8 and liked it, but wasn’t blown away. I wouldn’t say I was blown away by this one either, but I am certainly very impressed and am eagerly anticipating whatever Dragon Quest 12 ends up being. This series is super founded in tradition (even if that tradition is detrimental to the gameplay imo?) but this game felt like a true evolution of that tradition while still holding onto it in the right ways. Are there ways to improve the game? Oh yeah, tons! But this is already a good step in the right direction. I will certainly be visiting the series more eventually (particularly 3, 4, and 5 are ones I’m curious about.) But I will probably emulate them to cheat when I run into roadblocks again.

After playing this, I also went back to play as Hero in Smash. They are still one of the best, if not my favorite character in the game. I think they are so fun and I love the randomness element that comes with them. Their stage is great too!

Also, seeing this gorgeous RPG with Akira Toriyama art in it made me REALLY want a new Blue Dragon. Like, REALLY bad. Please Microsoft if you’re listening PLEASE give us a new Blue Dragon. I don’t care what genre of RPG it is just give us a new one please I’m begging. Make it look like DQ11 and it will be the best game of all time.

Okay but enough of that. Thanks for skimming through or just letting me talk for a bit. For some reason the longer I held this one off, the less and less I felt like talking about it? Which is strange cause it’s a big game and I felt like I had tons to say during it. The only reason I even finished this and decided to post it was cause I already started it. Basically what I’m saying is that don’t be surprised if I just start making REALLY teeny tiny posts here instead of big rambles like this one.

But until then, I have work to do. I played through the Ty 2 HD remake on Switch recently and loved it all over again. I will maybe talk about that later. At the moment I’m playing Tales of Vesperia. Thanks again for putting up with me ramble about games, see you next time! Play something you love that puts you in an adventurous mood!

[loup-roux]

Two of them!!

[loup-roux]

HEYA i'm not dead lmao

[loup-roux]

I havent posted about my Luminary twin au on Tumblr yet >:3

[loup-roux]

11

[loup-roux]

I decided to draw the twins in the Gallopolis armor! :D i feel like since its knight armor- there wouldnt be really a difference between the two sets? I also tried out lighting! >:3 lmk what u think!!

(Heres the progress!)